Samsung vs Apple: Emoticon Wars

Samsung and Apple are back in the court room, this time fighting over whether the fruity firm infringed upon four other patents, one of which controls the display of emoticons.

"(Samsung) made four more claims; two are standard-related patents and the other two are utility patents. And a court said it would make these claims separate from the April lawsuit," a Samsung spokesperson said when talking with Reuters.

These new patent claims come as the ongoing court battles between the two tech giants are only escalating. Samsung recently won a battle - hardly the war - in Australia, where the company overturned Apple's request to ban the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Now that it's on sale again in that time zone, the focus has turned to Europe and the US where both firms are hoping to get the other's hardware banned simply for resembling their own.

It's not all rosey for Samsung though as its recent request to get the iPhone 4s banned in France was turned down by the courts.

This latest patent battle was addressed in a German court on Friday last week, with the announcement coming that the official results of the case will be decided upon and unveiled on 2nd March next year.